Thousands brave rain to show support for residential school survivors (with video)

VANCOUVER -- Mavis Jeffries stood outside the gates of the VIP area at the Truth and Reconciliation stage in the pouring rain. One arm hugged her granddaughter Katherine close, the other tugged her belongings in a small bag as she tried to figure out where she should be.

“Mavis, over there.” Someone gestured toward the fenced-off seating.

“Oh, no, that’s the VIP area,” said Mavis, melting back into the crowd.

“Yes, go. The seats are for the survivors.”

She hesitated, then squeezed through the gate.

At this event, residential school survivors were the VIPs.

Outside the fences, lining the streets under a canopy of multi-coloured umbrellas were 70,000 people who had come to honour First Nations people and walk in support of reconciliation.

The Walk for Reconciliation was the culmination of a week of events in Vancouver and part of a five-year process across Canada to tell Canadians about the history of residential schools to forge understanding and reconciliation between aboriginals and non-aboriginals.

While speakers and dignitaries gathered on stage, Jeffries redirected her granddaughter, who had picked a seat in the front row. She insisted they sit farther to the back.

Surely there were more important people here who deserved those front row seats.

Or perhaps not. The front row seats remained empty, like ghostly place holders for all those who deserved to be there, but could not make the journey.

Remembering has been part of the process this week for Jeffries. Like so many others, she was not just here for herself.

Her father, who is no longer alive, went to residential schools. Archivists at the Truth and Reconciliation event, which was held at the PNE, had found a photo of him at residential school and showed it to her. Seeing it brought back the residential school memories that had shadowed him and caught their family in its penumbra.

“My father had to bury three boys,” she said. “He never got over it.”

The emotional work of remembering and sharing her story often made her physically ill, near to fainting; a visceral response that many others experienced as well, she said.

The process hasn’t been easy, but the support has been like a blanket.

After sharing her story in The Vancouver Sun, readers reached out spontaneously with extraordinary generosity. When our story about Jeffries, who was selling bannock in Gitsegukla to raise money to attend the events in Vancouver, appeared on The Vancouver Sun website earlier this week, the emails poured in.

Another read, “I would like to help if I can. Too old (83) to ‘walk’ but I have a comfortable apartment in the West End, and a spare bedroom …”

An anonymous donor dropped $500 off at The Vancouver Sun office. Another reader, who had taught First Nations children, insisted on giving $1,000 even when no more was needed.

A volunteer, June Wyse set aside most of her week and reached out to coordinate, putting plane tickets for Mavis and her granddaughter on her credit card, arranging accommodation and meeting Mavis at the airport. “Thank you for letting me be part of her journey,” she said.

Jeffries was overwhelmed and buoyed. She has decided to further her family’s healing by enrolling in a family treatment program, a process she was able to get underway with help from facilitators at the TRC event.

“Thank you, thank you, Hami’ Ya,” she said.

The reader response was a testament to the power of storytelling to bring a community together.

But our reader’s response, like efforts of the tens of thousands that showed up to walk with the survivors, says much, much more than that.

It says that reconciliation is a privilege in which we want to participate. It says we are sorry, so terribly sorry. We wish we could take away your suffering and give you your children, your childhoods and your future back. We wish you peace and most of all, we wish you love.

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Thousands brave rain to show support for residential school survivors (with video)

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